


In plain sight.

by songofproserpine



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tumblr Prompt, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2018-12-18 11:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11873085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofproserpine/pseuds/songofproserpine
Summary: Tumblr Prompt: "Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move."





	In plain sight.

Would you leave me,  
If I told you what I've done?  
And would you need me,  
If I told you what I've become?  
'Cause it's so easy,  
To say it to a crowd  
But it's so hard, my love,  
To say it to you out loud

\-- Florence + the Machine, "No Light, No Light"

There is a special kind of silence that only almost-lovers know. It hangs in the air like a hook, and catches all sideways glances, rapt stares, heartbeats, and hushed gasps in its grasp. This loaded silence often hangs noose-heavy in the air, brazen, bold, demanding to be felt, to be _heard_. So insistent is its silence that almost-lovers never quite know how to make the brave leap off the cliff of chance and share the reason for these long, longing stares.

Lovers have a language all their own, and together they reduce the world down to two, but almost-lovers—those almost-lovers, those who are caught in the twilight web of the in between, the not-quite and the so-close-but-no-cigar realm of _maybe_ —have no words of their own.

Goro and Ren look at each other, and privately, in the quietest corners of their mind, they come to the same conclusion as the other, without ever knowing it. They love without knowing how to say it. No shared tongue lies between them. They may smile and laugh and joke, they might talk until they tire of every possible topic, but they will never know just how to say what sits brooding and bitter in their nests of a heart.

Each time they’re together, be it in Leblanc, or at the subway station, or even meeting perchance in the city, Goro does his best not to look at Ren too long. He counts the seconds in his head, allowing himself the indulgence of a few extra glances here and there. He has a practiced smile waiting on deck and an excuse ready to go should Ren notice him looking for too long and say something about it.

Of course Ren notices. He is looking as intently at Goro as he himself is being looked upon, and though they trade off and take turns, Ren can never seem to catch Goro in mid-stare. It’s as if their gaze has a weight that gives only when the other takes.

Of course Ren doesn’t say anything about it. He just doesn’t know the words for it, how to find them, how to shape them—or even what to say about… this. This tennis match back and forth of looking and knowing and feeling, about all this effort spent _not saying_.

It’s as if there’s a hole behind his mouth, full of an appetite that has no end. And all the words Ren could say, all that he _wants_ to say, slides back down into the dark of his secret self, deep and down into the blackest, deepest pit, and has no hope of crawling back out again. And each time Ren catches Goro’s eye–each time they share a crooked smile or a gentle word, light questions with no depth or warmth, said simply to pass the time (”How are things going for you in school?” “Any progress on the investigation?” “Been to any good restaurants lately?”)–Ren knows, in the uncanny way that almost-lovers can _know_ without being told, that he isn’t alone in suffering such a silence.

Fat lot of good that does, though.

So the two boys stand on opposite ends of each other’s lives, circling the brim of the sea of love that they could easily, happily, gladly, dive into, if only the other one would move first. The best they can manage is a brush on the back of the hand, a light press of fingertips to knuckles, to wrist, to forearm. It is so simple, so effortless, so small as to be insignificant, yet it sets every cell inside them alight.

It isn’t enough, but it is everything.


End file.
